Lossless and high-resolution RF photonic notch filter

Ultrahigh-Q lithium niobate microring resonator with multimode waveguide

Difficulty in etching lithium niobate (LN) results in a relatively high propagation loss, which necessitates sophisticated processes to fabricate high-quality factor (Q) microresonators. Here, we fabricate a multimode microring resonator with an intrinsic Q of 6 × 10⁶, which exhibits a propagation loss 50 times lower than that of a single-mode LN microring fabricated under the same process. Notably, the excitation of higher-order modes in the multimode microring is effectively suppressed by utilizing the Euler bend. The highly regular transmission spectrum of the resonator demonstrates a free spectral range (FSR) of 56 GHz. Based on this microresonator, we implement a bandpass microwave photonic filter with an ultra-narrow 3 dB bandwidth of 47.5 MHz and a large tuning range of 2-26.5 GHz. It can be anticipated that the combination of existing advanced etching techniques with this work will drive the propagation loss of a LN waveguide closer to the material absorption loss, significantly facilitating the optimization of performance in applications requiring ultrahigh-Q LN microresonators, such as frequency combs, frequency conversion, electro-optic modulation, and quantum photonics.

Guided-acoustic stimulated Brillouin scattering in silicon nitride photonic circuits

Coherent optomechanical interaction known as stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) can enable ultrahigh resolution signal processing and narrow-linewidth lasers. SBS has recently been studied extensively in integrated waveguides; however, many implementations rely on complicated fabrication schemes. The absence of SBS in standard and mature fabrication platforms prevents its large-scale circuit integration. Notably, SBS in the emerging silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) photonic integration platform is currently out of reach because of the lack of acoustic guidance. Here, we demonstrate advanced control of backward SBS in multilayer Si₃N₄ waveguides. By optimizing the separation between two Si₃N₄ layers, we unlock acoustic waveguiding in this platform, potentially leading up to 15× higher Brillouin gain coefficient than previously possible in Si₃N₄ waveguides. We use the enhanced SBS gain to demonstrate a high-rejection microwave photonic notch filter. This demonstration opens a path to achieving Brillouin-based photonic circuits in a standard, low-loss Si₃N₄ platform.

All-pass phase shifting enabled by symmetric topological unidirectional guided resonances

All-pass phase shifting (APS), which involves a wave propagating at a constant, unitary amplitude but with pure phase variation, is extremely desired in many optoelectronic applications. In this work, we propose a method of realizing APS by out-of-plane excitation of a topologically enabled unidirectional guided resonance (UGR), which resides in a photonic crystal slab with P or C_2z symmetries. Briefly, the symmetries and unidirectional features reduce the number of ports to one that simultaneously adds or drops energy. As a result, the phase independently shifts by varying the frequency but the amplitude remains as unitary under plane wave excitation. Theory and simulations confirm our findings. A paradox that the background contribution deviates from Fabry-Perot resonance is clarified from a multi-resonances picture.

Adaptive photonic RF spectral shaper

The radio frequency spectral shaper is an essential component in emerging multi-service mobile communications, multiband satellite and radar systems, and future 5G/6G radio frequency systems for equalizing spectral unevenness, removing out-of-band noise and interference, and manipulating multi-band signal simultaneously. While it is easy to achieve simple spectral functions using either conventional microwave photonic filters or the optical spectrum to microwave spectra mapping techniques, it is challenging to enable complex spectral shaping functions over tens of GHz bandwidth as well as to achieve point-by-point shaping capability to fulfill the needs in dynamic wireless communications. In this paper, we proposed and demonstrated a novel spectral shaping system, which utilizes a two-section algorithm to automatically decompose the target RF response into a series of Gaussian functions and to reconstruct the desired RF response by microwave photonic techniques. The devised spectral shaping system is capable of manipulating the spectral function in various bands (S, C, and X) simultaneously with step resolution of as fine as tens of MHz. The resolution limitation in optical spectral processing is mitigated using the discrete convolution technique. Over 10 dynamic and independently adjustable spectral control points are experimentally achieved based on the proposed spectral shaper.

Two-pole microring weight banks

Weighted addition is an elemental multi-input to single-output operation that can be implemented with high-performance photonic devices. Microring (MRR) weight banks bring programmable weighted addition to silicon photonics. Prior work showed that their channel limits are affected by coherent inter-channel effects that occur uniquely in weight banks. We fabricate two-pole designs that exploit this inter-channel interference in a way that is robust to dynamic tuning and fabrication variation. Scaling analysis predicts a channel count improvement of 3.4-fold, which is substantially greater than predicted by incoherent analysis used in conventional MRR devices. Advances in weight bank design expand the potential of reconfigurable analog photonic networks and multivariate microwave photonics.

All-optimized integrated RF photonic notch filter

We report a silicon nitride chip-based radio-frequency photonic notch filter with an unprecedented performance including an RF gain of 8 dB, a record-low noise figure of 15.6 dB, and a spurious-free dynamic range of 116  dB·Hz^2/3, with a stop band rejection of 50 dB. This level of performance is achieved by using on-chip resonators' unique phase responses, and thorough optimizations of the photonic link. These record results will potentially stimulate future implementations of integrated microwave photonic subsystems for real-world applications.